Africa
Ruedatec has officially joined the European network of Bandag dealers. Its new retreading shop and administrative building have now been formally inaugurated in the presence of Bandag’s Peter De Cabooter, sales director for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Danny Van Essche, EMEA marketing director.
Michelin’s reputation for quality and durability has taken on a new meaning after a globetrotting couple drove 100,000 km, twice round the world, in their Land Rover Discovery on just two sets of Michelin 4×4 tyres.
“The tyres were fantastic throughout. The first set were used during the Northern Hemisphere section of the journey, and the second set took us through Australia, South America and then onto North Africa before heading back through Europe to England,” said Peter and Eileen Crichton. And all without a single puncture!
This year’s Reifen 2004 exhibition was the most international yet. Exhibitors and visitors alike are already looking forward to the next show, which will take place from 23 to 26 May 2006.
The eyes of many large companies in the West are turning increasingly eastwards, with Asia and the Pacific Rim being touted as the growth markets of the early 21st century. As such, multinational companies are falling over themselves to invest in manufacturing across a variety of industries.
Or so the received wisdom goes, but this attitude is a trifle simplistic as it implies that the East is waiting for western companies to come to their aid and show them how things are done. Another misconception is that, when people talk about “the East” as a potential industrial powerhouse, most people are talking about China.
And there is little doubt that China has real potential, but it is by no means alone; there is another giant in the East preparing to flex its industrial muscles and that is India. Not only does India have enormous human resources, but it has an established industrial base – companies in India are not reliant on western firms introducing technology and ideas, as they have been manufacturing products for domestic and foreign consumption for many years, in many industries.
This is certainly true for the tyre industry, as India has a number of companies producing products which perform well on the punishing Indian domestic market, with its lack of good roads and overloading as the norm, as well as outside countries with more sophisticated infrastructures. It could be said that, if you can make a tyre that can withstand the rigours of Indian roads, then it will work anywhere.
One of the leading tyre manufacturers in India is Balkrishna Tyres (BKT), based in Mumbai. It is part of the Siyaram Poddar group, which is a conglomerate turning over US$ 250 million a year and, apart from tyres, has interests in textiles, clothes, rubber products and paper.
BKT established a factory at Aurangabad, in western India, in 1988, which had a capacity of 3,000 tonnes per annum and all related facilities, including an in-house R&D department. Four years later, the company developed a range of light commercial vehicle tyres, aimed largely at the export market and, in 1996, the product range was expanded to include industrial and agricultural tyres. Exports began to Europe, the USA and Australasia.
Overseas sales led to an expansion programme in 1999, entailing an investment of US$ 50 million. As sales increased, so did the range of products to include flotation and MPT tyres. In 2002, production capacity was doubled at a stroke when BKT acquired a factory at Bhiwadi; in the same year BKT was awarded ISO 9001:2000 quality accreditation by KPMG, Netherlands.
Last year an expansion programme was successfully undertaken at the Bhiwadi factory and the product range enlarged to include ATV tyres, plus tyres for lawn and garden implements and earthmovers.
As BKT’s reputation has grown, so too has its export business, until today 95 per cent of production is sold outside India, in both replacement and OE markets. The main markets are Western Europe, North America and Australasia, although BKT has distributors across the globe, on all continents except Antarctica. Looking ahead, BKT aims to increase its global presence and has planned what the company calls “an ambitious expansion programme”, costing over US$20 million, which will further increase the product range and production capacity. Exports will form a key part of this strategy, with BKT looking to consolidate and grow its presence in existing successful markets and to move more aggressively into new markets, such as Eastern Europe, Latin/South America and Africa.
Goodyear has introduced HydraGrip, a new high performance summer tyre, specially developed for rainy and wet weather conditions. With its innovative DynamicDrain TRED technology HydraGrip provides unrivalled wet braking and aquaplaning safety without compromising its performance on dry roads.
Goodyear customer research has shown that in Europe safety is the primary concern of drivers of medium and large high performance and family vehicles, especially in rain and wet weather. No matter where you drive in Europe, you are facing a lot of rain: according to the yearly weather statistics it rains in Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Warsaw and Stockholm three out of five days, even cities like Athens, Madrid and Rome have almost 100 rainy days per year. European drivers across the continent have to drive an average of 141 days per year on wet roads. “Accidents happen especially when it starts raining after a dry period – a situation that demands high performance both from tyres and drivers. Therefore it is no surprise that 70 per cent of European drivers want tyres that behave particularly well on wet roads,” explained Paul Joosten, marketing director Goodyear brands Europe, Middle East and Africa in Mireval, when launching the HydraGrip. “Our goal was to develop a tyre that provides optimal safety in the quickly changing European summer weather with its alternate heavy rainfall and dry periods. After millions of tested kilometres and three years of development at Goodyear‘s Research and Development Centres in Colmar Berg, Luxembourg, we now proudly introduce a tyre that sets new standards for high performance summer tyres,” added Joosten.
Thanks to its unique DynamicDrain TRED technology HydraGrip provides excellent side grip and lateral stability, coupled with an unrivalled performance in emergency braking and resistance to aquaplaning. “HydraGrip gives drivers the all around performance and safety that they demand in extreme wet conditions,” said Joosten.
The new DynamicDrain TRED technology is a combination of highly sophisticated technology features such as 3D-BIS technology, cascade blading and V-TRED design with a specially developed high performance tread compound. In Detail: Goodyear‘s patented Three Dimensional Block Interlocking System (3D-BIS), well-known from successful Goodyear winter tyres, significantly improves the tyre’s wet and dry handling performance because it allows an increased number of blades in the tyre compared with traditional bladed tyres. This technology equips the tyre with as many biting edges as possible to provide excellent behaviour in aquaplaning and on wet roads while at the same time preserving the precise and dynamic handling characteristics of a high performance tyre with its stiff solid tread blocks. HydraGrip‘s 3D-BIS technology also increases the blade length with worn tyres and therefore improves the tyre‘s wet performance during the whole tyre life.
The development of a free trade area by the EAC and the introduction of zero-rate tax on tractor tyres could eat into Firestone East Africa’s local market share according to local commentators. Further, a decision by the company to develop an equity retail chain is being met with resistance by the tyre trade. It is claimed that outgoing managing director Hiroshi Yamazaki had already expressed concerns that the new tariff decision by the government would severely affect the firm’s tractor tyre product line, which employs about 150 people. Sources said unless the firm improves its level of efficiency, monthly production capacities of 900 for tractor tyres and 2,500 for truck and bus tyres would fall. Even in Africa the market for light trucks and passenger vehicles has been facing heavy pricing pressures as a result of both the flooding of the local market by cheap imports and counterfeits.
IBS America, Inc., one of the world’s leading suppliers of Internet-based software and services for quality and compliance management, has announced that the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s East Europe, Africa and Middle East business unit has gained full regional certification for quality, safety and environmental standards using its QSi System. The global standards organisation Bureau Veritas Quality International (BVQi) issued the multi-site certification for Goodyear EEAME’s regional headquarters in Brussels and six manufacturing facilities located in Turkey, Slovenia, Poland, Morocco and South Africa. Each of these locations is fully compliant with critical business standards including ISO/TS 16949:2002, ISO 14001 & OHSAS 18001, Adapazari (Turkey), South Africa, Poland and Slovenia. ISO 9001:2000, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, Izmit (Turkey) and Morocco.
Firestone East Africa Ltd. (Nairobi/Kenya) is set to commission a 114-million Shilling (0.8 million Pounds)truck and bus tyre-assembly machine as it struggles to emerge from a profit-decline over the last two years. The development will be coming on the back of another 1.1 million Pounds project. The new assembly machine is intended to enable enhancement of product range including the production of tubeless tyres. The firm has been shaken by huge profit drops since 2002.
Maxiprest (South Africa) yesterday announced the resignation of three executive directors, including chief executive Colin Brown. This follows the resignation last month of three non-executive directors, who suggested in a letter released after their resignations that there was a conflict between the board of Maxiprest and its management. They said that executives of Bridgestone SA had conceded during a meeting that they intended “to replace the existing management of the company with Bridgestone SA employees.” There is conflict between Bridgestone SA and Maxiprest. The future of Maxiprest is now uncertain, but there is speculation that Bridgestone may buy out the remaining shareholders and delist the company.
NF Die Casting (Pty) Ltd., a South African subsidiary of Hayes Lemmerz, has changed its company name to Hayes Lemmerz South Africa (Pty) Ltd., creating a stronger brand identity connection between the Corporation and its subsidiary. Hayes Lemmerz South Africa (Pty) Ltd., formerly NF Die Casting (Pty) Ltd., is a producer of cast aluminium wheels for the automotive industry. The facility is located in Alrode, near Johannesburg.
Bridgestone is to invest 700 million Rand (86 million euro) in upgrading and expanding its Brits tyre manufacturing plant, in North West Province, over a five year period. The investment takes Bridgestone’s total investment in its South African operation to 1.5 billion Rand (185 million euro). The plant, which makes steel belt tyres for passenger, light commercial vehicles and trucks for the local market, has already seen some 210 million Rand (26 million euro) in improvements over the past two years. The improvements will increase capacity by 26 per cent and enable the production of run-flat tyres.
Bridgestone Corporation has announced that it has begun raising tyre prices by around 5 per cent in Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, Africa and Russia to offset the rising cost of natural rubber and other raw materials. The price increases vary by product and by market and largely apply to radial and bias tyres for passenger cars, light trucks, trucks and buses sold under the Bridgestone and Firestone brands.
Tenneco Automotive has named Paul D. Novas vice president of finance and administration for the company’s European operations. Novas will also continue in his current role as corporate treasurer. The appointment to this newly created position is effective immediately. In his new role, Novas will oversee all finance, tax and shared service operations for Tenneco Automotive’s European businesses, which operate in Eastern and Western Europe and also include the company’s South Africa operations. In 2002, Tenneco Automotive Europe businesses accounted for 35 percent of the corporation’s world-wide revenues.
Hayes Lemmerz South Africa was recently named as a Volkswagen “Supplier of the Year”. This is the latest in a string of awards, which includes the Nissan SA Quality Achievement Award, Supplier of the Year nomination from Toyota SA, the Q1 Award from Ford and TUV Rheinland TS16949 quality certification. Located near Johannesburg, the company manufactures cast wheels. Hayes Lemmerz’s facility in Brazil was also recently awarded the Q1 Award from Ford.
Jarro F. Kaplan, a Goodyear employee since 1986, is already in his second year as President Eastern Europe and is responsible for the region that includes Eastern Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East as well as some other countries in Asia. Before that he was General Manager Deutsche Goodyear in Cologne for two years and earlier in his career he held General Manager positions in the UK and Turkey. The region he is now responsible for is – measured by turnover – relatively small, but is becoming increasingly important due to the fact that the group is running highly competitive factories in Poland, Slovenia and Turkey. The income of the workers in those countries is not comparable with that of countries in Western Europe and will not become so for the next decade.
The biggest factory within the production network of the Goodyear Group in the whole of Europe is the Polish factory in Debica. The production is focused on passenger car tyres, mostly S/T rated. The Debica brand dominates, but many Fulda tyres are also produced there. And the Goodyear brand? “Not yet” says Kaplan. Debica has a production capacity of 40,000 tyres a day and there are already concrete plans drawn up to expand this. Plus it should not be forgotten that the Debica factory also produces some agricultural tyres as well as commercial tyres.
South Africa also belongs to Kaplan’s “Empire”. Goodyear has a big factory there and also its own equity with about 150 outlets, plus it is building and expanding a franchise-system.
Starting from South Africa, Goodyear is interested in doing more business in countries like Botswana, Sierra Leone, Kenya and some other countries. The company’s own equity in South Africa is doing a good job delivering tyres in the shortest possible time to customers. But it is absolutely clear that in the long run Goodyear must have its own people in those countries on which the company can rely; it can no longer leave everything in the hands of distributors. Kaplan: “You need to have your own people on the ground.”
Kaplan is travelling much more. For example to Dubai; from here Goodyear is defending its interests in countries like Israel as well as Palestine, in Iraq, Iran and so on. He travels to the north of Africa as well as to Pakistan. Pakistan belongs to his region. He who knows world politics can imagine that it might be impossible to bring India and Pakistan together under the one umbrella of Goodyear Asia.
To summarise: The Eastern Region is active in 95 different countries, with 52 different languages, which forces all managers to be sensitive and to respect the varied cultures.
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